


Hard Times

by NortheasternWind



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Breakup, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Demon!Aziraphale, M/M, angel!Crowley, az is a bit of a bastard, reverse au, sekret archangel crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 12:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20228203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NortheasternWind/pseuds/NortheasternWind
Summary: The bandstand scene, reverse!au.





	Hard Times

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [speremint's](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186574829700) specific brand of Reverse AU, where Crowley is the archangel Raphael in disguise, Aziraphale is a magpie, and they're both still ridiculously in love. Some liberties taken just because I can, sorry. Might write a sequel later.

The worst part is that Azirafell did, in fact, approach Anthony with the intention of making him a demon.

He’d been nervous about the whole giving away the flaming sword thing: he could easily spin it as giving the humans the means to destroy themselves, but it probably wasn’t what his superiors had in mind when they’d told him to make some trouble. What a catch, then, another angel would be! Hell needed more demons like it needed more sulphur, but it would at least prove that Azirafell had been trying his utmost and not, Satan forbid, helping.

It would have worked, too, if he hadn’t suddenly decided to keep it all a secret. Because it turned out that the angel posted at Eden hadn’t needed any tempting at all.

“I thought She would punish _me_,” he admitted quietly, watching Adam and Eve defend themselves. “Does She not know?”

“W-well,” Azirafell said, stammering in shock for the first time in his existence, “perhaps it was the choice that mattered. After all, they could have simply not eaten the fruit.”

“I suppose,” Anthony had said dubiously.

So Azirafell had gone downstairs and told them it was he who invented the Original Sin, he who tempted Eve, and kept a close eye on the strange angel ever since.

What a terrible mistake. Now Azirafell has more than just _things_ to think about, and no desire whatsoever for Anthony to join the ranks of Hell.

The angel is absolutely infuriating. It’s maddening, the way Anthony moons over Azirafell as though he were a personal gift from God; the way the harsh line of his shoulders softens when he catches sight of blond curls; the way every inch of him seems to bend towards the demon like a flower turns to the sun. Anthony is, put bluntly, absolutely infatuated with Azirafell, which is baffling enough on its own, but even more startling is the fact that this does not seem to bother him.

“Slaying a fellow angel is surely a capital offense!” Azirafell pointed out, a little more hysterically than sternly. “My dear, I am almost certain you would rather face whatever punishment Heaven can think up for you than use hellfire to try and weasel your way out of it.”

“Capital punishment doesn’t bother me,” Anthony had responded irritably, pushing the small sheet of paper back into Azirafell’s hand.

“Well, it should! I chose the Fall, you know, of my own free will, and even I—”

Even Azirafell couldn’t bear to relive it. To see that inflicted upon Anthony…

“It would destroy you,” he finished instead.

“If I ever have to use hellfire, I’m pretty sure the Fall would be the least of my worries,” Anthony said sardonically.

They hadn’t spoken again for about eighty years.

It’s not that Azirafell doesn’t appreciate the angel’s devotion. Hell is not the place for trust and no demon would ever expect it from Heaven, so Anthony is Azirafell’s one and only lasting friend. It’s just that—well, perhaps it’s because he’s a demon, but demons on the whole are more emotional than angels and so he doubts it can explain this—it’s just that Azirafell doesn’t understand why.

That’s why it’s a problem, the fact that this is exactly what Azirafell meant to happen when he first approached the angel on the wall. He had expected it to be harder. He had expected to have to remind Anthony that he has desires and feelings of his own, that he too is a child of God and therefore must have the right to pursue happiness, in whatever form that takes. He had expected to have to fight for Anthony’s attention. He hadn’t expected Anthony to simply give it to him, and then rebuke all Azirafell’s attempts to give it back.

He shouldn’t feel bad. This is what he wanted. He’d wanted to drag Anthony to Hell, to teach one of those high-and-mighty angels the truth, to knock him down a peg. But he’d soon discovered that Anthony didn’t have much distance left to fall in the first place: Anthony sorrowed at the apathy of his angelic brethren, questioned God freely if perhaps not openly, thanked a demon for giving his infernal blade away to the humans he himself had convinced to break their only law. Anthony was…

Anthony was the only angel worth the name, Azirafell realizes, the name the humans gave them. He was the only true guardian of Earth and humanity, the softest angel who had ever lived, and Azirafell has been trying for six millenia to destroy him.

He has very nearly succeeded, and he doesn’t know if he can stop it now.

He feels bad for dragging Anthony to Hell, and he feels bad for feeling bad, and he feels foolish for being so distraught, and it’s all just too much for his shriveled demonic heart to handle.

* * *

“I mean do you know the Antichrist’s name, address and shoe size?” Anthony asks irritably, and there it is: Azirafell has a decision to make, and he has to make it now.

Would sweet, soft Anthony kill a child, to save humanity? Would Azirafell survive that? Should he even tell Anthony, having sworn his soul to Hell so many years ago?

“Why would I have his shoe size?” he answers, trying to match Anthony’s tone.

“It’s a joke. I’ve got nothing either.”

“The hellhound has found its master,” Azirafell says. “The horsepeople will as well. It can’t be stopped, Anthony.”

And it shouldn’t be, he does not say, because he knows that Anthony will disagree. Anthony swan-dived out of line thousands of years ago, and the only reason he is still an angel is because Heaven doesn’t know it. Anthony will denounce Heaven out loud, if Azirafell provokes him to it, and that…

Anthony’s expression twists behind his sunglasses, and for the first time in some decades Azirafell cannot read him. He can feel Anthony’s pain and fear, but neither of those pierces him as well as the anger wafting off the angel. Anthony is angry, upset about humanity’s preordained end, and down that way lays danger.

“Come with me.”

Azirafell blinks. He nearly missed that. “Beg pardon?”

“Come away with me,” Anthony says, voice taking on an urgent quality. “The universe is a big place. We can find some forgotten corner—”

“Run away together?!” Azirafell interrupts, unbelieving. “You want to run away together? Like—like a Jane Austen novel?”

“We could do it,” Anthony says seriously, as though he’s actually considering this. “Everyone’d be too busy fighting to come look for us. We’d be long gone before they even got the chance.”

“My dear boy, that’s not the point!” Azirafell cries. “You can’t just abandon the Heavenly Host, Anthony, not without—without—”

“I don’t care,” Anthony says, as though from the depths of Azirafell’s nightmares.

“Well, you should!” Azirafell shouts, for the second time in as many centuries. “We’ll eat you alive, Anthony, and that’s if there’s anything left after the Fall! Do you think it was painless? It was agony, Anthony, the sort that destroys minds! A creampuff like you would crawl out of the Pit with no memory and no name, and spend the rest of eternity as a chew toy for the rest of us.”

“I’m stronger than that! And it’s worth it, isn’t it? For friendship?”

“We are not friends!”

No, no—every muscle in Azirafell’s corporation trembles in terror and protest at Anthony’s words. “We are not friends,” he repeats, “we cannot be friends, because—because—”

“Because?”

“Because we can’t! We are not friends, we have never been friends, and I don’t even like you!”

“You realize it’s pointless to lie when I can literally sense your affection, fiend?”

It happens before Azirafell can stop himself. One second he’s shouting across the bandstand at Anthony, and the next he has the angel pinned to one of the columns by the lapels, lifted off his feet by demonic strength. In the instant between trapping Anthony and speaking Azirafell even feels a spark of lust from the angel, and that more than anything awakens an ugly panic in him.

“You’re a fool,” he growls. “You want to lecture a demon about affection, about friends? Did you think you would drag me back to the light, using yourself as the bait?”

Anthony doesn’t answer. His sunglasses have fallen off his face and he is currently staring wide-eyed at Azirafell’s lips, which only fans the flames of his anger even higher.

“Look at me!” he demands. “I am a demon! I chose to be a demon, I enjoy leading innocents to their ruin—shut up!—I’ve bargained love and memories away from mortals for money, and you think we’re friends? We’ve never been friends. I’ve never cared about you.”

Something new breaks in him at every word. It’s true; it’s all true, he thinks. There’s no other reason to have sought out the angel’s company, time after time. Azirafell is a demon, has willfully traded God’s grace and love for his own desires, and if Anthony thinks he can be anything but selfish—

“Even if—” Anthony begins to croak.

“It’s true,” Azirafell hisses. “You’ve only ever been my pet project. A demon in the making. I’ve had you from Eden.”

“You have,” Anthony agrees. “I love you.”

You see, no rescuing ever occurred in 1941. At least, not between an angel and a demon. Azirafell has become rather good at sensing deceit, and Anthony’s brand of help tends more towards direct acts of charity and kindness. Anthony never handed a case of books to Azirafell and then offered him a lift home, and so Azirafell has never had to confront the thing growing inside him for some thousand years or so.

Azirafell has known for a long, long time that Anthony is in love with him. It isn’t until this moment that he realizes he may love Anthony back.

He longs to strike Anthony across the face, or throw him carelessly to the ground, anything at all to hurt someone who has just dealt him a wound that may never heal. But Anthony isn’t just someone: Azirafell can already feel the pain oozing out of him, and he can’t will himself to add to it any further no matter how desperately he tries.

Instead he simply vanishes in a whirlwind of feathers, leaving Anthony to collapse in a heap upon the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Not my best work but listen. l i t s e n


End file.
